puzzle, but no one wanted to tell him how it all fitted together. Maybe no one but mad Pratt knew.
At 3.30, Fred was finally able to ask Sturges Fellini what was going on here.
‘Let me explain the background. Let’s begin with civilization. You see, civilization is really a waveguide of vertebrate culture. Just as the spine is a waveguide of information from the periphery to the human central processing unit, so civilization just moves data from the interface to the CPU of total collective mind. The most civilized person is really only a bunch of neurons vibrating in a bag of skin.’
‘I see.’
‘The neo-cybernetic explosion is fuelled by an explosion of sub-psychic experience – take rapping, for example, break-dancing, or body-popping. Kids put on mirror shades and think they’re robot gods … The mind metabolizes information to produce thought.’
Fred nodded. Everything Fellini said almost made sense.
‘The human mind is a waste-basket of unpredictable discards. The discards of Descartes. You see, people don’t want personal computers, they want personal slaves. They want people they can do anything with. Torture, fuck, smash, love, rebuild, restructure to any new graham cracker grandeur. And we are part of all this. We want to craft dolls that wind themselves up.’
‘You were going to say something about Mel Pratt?’
‘I think Mel’s been overdoing it, stressing out. He’s badly in need of some R and R.’
‘Rock ’n roll?’
Fellini looked at him strangely. ‘No, of course not. Rest and recreation. The point is, while we pursue our jellybean vignette, there are incendiary bombs of existence detonating all around us. Mel being just one of them. Yep, this crossover mega-culture is in for a bumpy ride.’
A chill gripped the back of Fred’s neck. This stuff soundedas mad as anything from Pratt or Pratt’s monster, and the fact that it was delivered in a well-modulated voice by a man in a good suit did not make it profound. Or did it?
‘Society does not exist,’ Fellini went on. ‘Society is no longer recognizable. It has vanished under an unintelligible crescendo of massified information.’
‘Right.’
‘That means we’re ready for a quantum leap into the hogshead of flexible options.’
‘Mm.’
‘It won’t be easy. Every transformation calls for a hundred further transformations. Every question raises hundreds of counter-questions. Soldiers will fall by the wayside. But at the same time …’
Fellini turned to the window, letting the sun bathe his newt face.
‘But isn’t it great? We can watch the unleashed wave varooming old thought-structures!’
As Fred was leaving his desk at the end of the day, his phone rang. It was Pratt.
‘Need you for a project meeting, Fred. Room twelve.’
‘I was just leaving, Mel.’
Pratt seemed to be having one of his gasping laughs, or an asthma attack. ‘This won’t take a minute.’
It took Fred several minutes to find conference room 12, which was in an unfamiliar corner of the building. When he found it, there was no one in the room but Pratt.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said. ‘I’ve made a big decision. I’m leaving the project.’ Fred had never seen the Lincoln stone face looking more relaxed and cheerful.
‘I see.’
‘My work is finished. All I have to do is tidy up a few loose ends.’ Pratt shuffled through a pile of papers, then took one up for study. He was still studying it, absent-mindedly, as he walked over and locked the door. Then he laid the paper on the table.
‘I guess the time has come to explain the true purpose of our project. The mission.’
Fred looked at the paper. It was covered with strange diagrams, symbols that looked more cabalistic than cybernetic. In fact there were one or two symbols from astrology: Fred thought he recognized Virgo (the M with its legs crossed) and Saturn (shepherd’s crook with a nail in it).
Across the top of the sheet it said:
I AM WHAT I AM
‘I am what I
At 3.30, Fred was finally able to ask Sturges Fellini what was going on here.
‘Let me explain the background. Let’s begin with civilization. You see, civilization is really a waveguide of vertebrate culture. Just as the spine is a waveguide of information from the periphery to the human central processing unit, so civilization just moves data from the interface to the CPU of total collective mind. The most civilized person is really only a bunch of neurons vibrating in a bag of skin.’
‘I see.’
‘The neo-cybernetic explosion is fuelled by an explosion of sub-psychic experience – take rapping, for example, break-dancing, or body-popping. Kids put on mirror shades and think they’re robot gods … The mind metabolizes information to produce thought.’
Fred nodded. Everything Fellini said almost made sense.
‘The human mind is a waste-basket of unpredictable discards. The discards of Descartes. You see, people don’t want personal computers, they want personal slaves. They want people they can do anything with. Torture, fuck, smash, love, rebuild, restructure to any new graham cracker grandeur. And we are part of all this. We want to craft dolls that wind themselves up.’
‘You were going to say something about Mel Pratt?’
‘I think Mel’s been overdoing it, stressing out. He’s badly in need of some R and R.’
‘Rock ’n roll?’
Fellini looked at him strangely. ‘No, of course not. Rest and recreation. The point is, while we pursue our jellybean vignette, there are incendiary bombs of existence detonating all around us. Mel being just one of them. Yep, this crossover mega-culture is in for a bumpy ride.’
A chill gripped the back of Fred’s neck. This stuff soundedas mad as anything from Pratt or Pratt’s monster, and the fact that it was delivered in a well-modulated voice by a man in a good suit did not make it profound. Or did it?
‘Society does not exist,’ Fellini went on. ‘Society is no longer recognizable. It has vanished under an unintelligible crescendo of massified information.’
‘Right.’
‘That means we’re ready for a quantum leap into the hogshead of flexible options.’
‘Mm.’
‘It won’t be easy. Every transformation calls for a hundred further transformations. Every question raises hundreds of counter-questions. Soldiers will fall by the wayside. But at the same time …’
Fellini turned to the window, letting the sun bathe his newt face.
‘But isn’t it great? We can watch the unleashed wave varooming old thought-structures!’
As Fred was leaving his desk at the end of the day, his phone rang. It was Pratt.
‘Need you for a project meeting, Fred. Room twelve.’
‘I was just leaving, Mel.’
Pratt seemed to be having one of his gasping laughs, or an asthma attack. ‘This won’t take a minute.’
It took Fred several minutes to find conference room 12, which was in an unfamiliar corner of the building. When he found it, there was no one in the room but Pratt.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said. ‘I’ve made a big decision. I’m leaving the project.’ Fred had never seen the Lincoln stone face looking more relaxed and cheerful.
‘I see.’
‘My work is finished. All I have to do is tidy up a few loose ends.’ Pratt shuffled through a pile of papers, then took one up for study. He was still studying it, absent-mindedly, as he walked over and locked the door. Then he laid the paper on the table.
‘I guess the time has come to explain the true purpose of our project. The mission.’
Fred looked at the paper. It was covered with strange diagrams, symbols that looked more cabalistic than cybernetic. In fact there were one or two symbols from astrology: Fred thought he recognized Virgo (the M with its legs crossed) and Saturn (shepherd’s crook with a nail in it).
Across the top of the sheet it said:
I AM WHAT I AM
‘I am what I
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